FOREIGN INVOLVEMENT: As several dead attackers had no family members willing to claim their bodies, officials suspect they were Indonesians
Buddhists and Muslims in southern Thailand held simultaneous prayers yesterday to repair community relations soured by a spate of suspected Islamic separatist violence and Bangkok's harsh military response.

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NOT SHINING: The world's largest democratic exercise requires five phases of voting that will end on May 10, after which several days of vote-counting will begin
Members of India's two largest parties fought with swords, knives and wooden batons yesterday, leaving at least 15 campaign workers injured a day before Indians in seven states go the polls in parliamentary elections.

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The Chinese province worst-hit by HIV/AIDS is turning to traditional Chinese medicine because Western-style drugs proved to have too many side-effects and were too expensive, state media said yesterday.

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A ban on using national funds to distribute condoms could result in an explosion of HIV/AIDS cases in this predominantly Roman-Catholic nation, an international human rights watchdog warned yesterday.

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China invited the head of Hong Kong's Catholic church to return to his hometown of Shanghai last week, lifting a six-year ban on one of Beijing's outspoken critics, a newspaper reported yesterday.

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Two Pakistanis are in police custody after a car bomb attack killed three Chinese engineers helping to develop a seaport, officials said yesterday.

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NEW BLUEPRINT: With his party rejecting the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza, the Israeli prime minister said he would alter the plan rather than scrap it
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took his first steps yesterday towards amending a US-backed Gaza pullout plan that his Likud party rejected, holding consultations with Cabinet ministers on a new blueprint.

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RISK RATES: The humanitarian group Save the Children says pregnancy and childbirth are the leading causes of death among teenage girls in underdeveloped countries
One out of 10 babies in the world today is born to a teenage mother, greatly increasing the risk of death to both mother and infant, the humanitarian group Save the Children said yesterday in an annual report.

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US President George W. Bush, kicking off a two-day bus tour of the battleground states of Michigan and Ohio, said on Monday his leadership had made the US safer and put the country on the road to economic recovery.

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Democrat John Kerry has launched a long-awaited, US$25 million advertising campaign with television spots that trace his life from Yale University to Vietnam to the US Senate.

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They have lived mostly unnoticed in France for years, some raising large families. Now, they are being tracked, investigated and expelled.

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BAD PUBLICITY: Sources in the British army say that photos showing soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner may well not be genuine, but the tabloid `Daily Mirror' held its ground
Senior British army figures claimed on Monday they had more evidence to suggest that pictures showing troops "torturing" an Iraqi prisoner were a hoax.

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Planning for national elections in Iraq is ahead of schedule, but violence must decline for the UN to oversee them, the chief of the organization's electoral assistance division said Monday.

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More than two months after a classified Army report found that two contract workers were implicated in the abuse of Iraqis at a prison outside Baghdad, the companies that employ them say that they have heard nothing from the Pentagon, and that they have not removed any employees from Iraq.

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Around 50 former US diplomats said President George W. Bush's Middle East policy was costing the US credibility, prestige and friends, in an open letter to be made public yesterday.

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TURNAROUND: According to the results of a poll released yesterday, for the first time more Australians are opposed to joining the US-led coalitions effort in Iraq
Australians have turned against the US-led war in Iraq as the violence gets worse, according to a new poll yesterday, with the fate of Australian troops there shaping up as a key issue before an election this year.

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■ The Philippines
Art dealer among 4 slain
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